‘I know, but I don’t want to be that person. Just now, when you were talking about Jonathan getting married, I was so jealous I could have screamed.’ Nora smiled apologetically. ‘I thought I’d see her married, Em – properly married, not that mockery of a wedding we had to go through at the convent.’ She thought back to the scene and how picturesque it had all been, how deceptively gentle – a procession of nuns holding lighted tapers with the new novices in the middle, dressed as brides. She had watched while her daughter knelt before the priest at the altar and asked for God’s mercy; watched as the young women were led away to have their hair cut, with tears pouring down her cheeks as Jenna’s long, blonde hair fell to the floor like a light extinguished. The mother 69superior had dressed her in a girdle and veil, and all Nora could think about, stupidly, was how hot the habit would be in the summer and whether or not the veil would protect her daughter’s pale skin from the sun – ordinary, motherly things that she really had no right to consider any more, because now someone else was Jenna’s mother. ‘They even had a wedding cake in the refectory afterwards,’ she said, trying to laugh, but the words came out in a strangled sob as she thought about all the things she had taken for granted. ‘I thought I’d be planning her wedding, I’d be the one by her side when she was having last-minute doubts or trying on her dress. And now I can’t even call her by the name I gave her at birth. She’s Sister Mary Theresa, but I have no idea who that is.’ It was the first time she had used the name, and it broke her. ‘Why, Emily?’ she demanded through her tears. ‘Why did she have to be that way? Why couldn’t it be someone else’s daughter?’

‘I can’t answer that, Nora. No one can except Jenna and God. I suppose it’s what He wanted for her.’

‘And what about what I wanted for her?’ Afterwards, Nora couldn’t remember if she had screamed the words aloud or said them only in her head. She swung round, lashing out at her friend, and the next thing she knew, Emily was lying on the floor with blood seeping from a wound in her head. She was horribly still.

Nora looked at the figure in her hands as if it had nothing to do with her, but the stain of red on the newly painted wood brought her back to her senses and she let it fall to the floor as if it had burnt her. She rushed to the door to lock it, terrified that someone might come in before she had decided what to do. Emily was partially obscured by the counter where she had been standing, and Nora knelt down to check 70her pulse, trying not to recoil from the blood that had begun to matt her hair and stain the collar of her blouse. There was nothing, and Nora began to cry again, shaking her friend’s shoulders and begging her to wake up, but the only response was a noise from the floor above, a soft thud like the closing of a door. To her horror, Nora realised that she had no idea if anyone else was on the premises; Emily had lived alone since her husband died, but she was popular with the villagers, and as she had said only a few minutes ago, the kettle was invariably on, waiting for visitors.